2014 一月 10

Is it time to bring back SAMs?

The apparel makers’ practice of Standard Allowable Minutes (SAMs) was widely used back in the early ’90s when the majority of apparel was produced in the U.S. SAMs established the time required to sew each part of a product, associated a difficulty rating with the process, and tied everything to a cost. But SAMs essentially disappeared in the late ’90s when close to 85 percent of apparel production moved overseas.

Now, apparel companies rely on past experience to determine price per piece. But this process limits the ability to precisely estimate costs for sewn goods. It leaves room for errors, misinterpretations and misunderstandings with vendors. And it doesn’t allow for the refinement of individual parts or processes.

In today’s world of fast fashion, tight margins and omnichannel merchandising, could SAMs help apparel makers make more intelligent design decisions?

SAMs eliminates ambiguities, decreasing sample iteration, lowering sample material and production costs, improving cost precision, and lowering the amount of time it takes to get a garment into production.

A typical argument against SAMs is that it’s initially very time consuming. But with today’s advanced PLM software, creating and maintaining the database of parts and process for sewing garments becomes easier. In fact, PLM software serves as a foundation for re-instituting the use of SAMs in the manufacturing process by housing a standard database (such as the General Sewing Data, or GSD) as part of PLM’s “single version of truth” about all products.

Read Centric’s article for more about the case for reintroducing SAMs to the apparel equation.